Save the Children's State of the World's Mothers Report finds that the United States spends only one half of 1 percent of the federal budget fighting global poverty, but reaps big rewards. Explore the report’s rankings of the world’s best and worst places to be a mother and essays by prominent contributors. Above: take a global tour of what’s working to save and improve the lives of mothers and children in need in the LinkTV documentary.

Save the Children runs a midwife training program in Afghanistan (where women are 200 times more likely
to die in childbirth than from a bullet or bomb, the group
says) and points out that $80 will pay for a midwifery kit
for new graduates.

-- Nicholas Kristof, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner
and New York Times columnist